CREE TEES: July 2006

Photographer Depicts Whiny Liberals As Babies Who Lost Their Lollipops

In this article in the LA Times, photographer Jill Greenberg tries to make a point and parodies herself and every other whiny liberal:

STEAL a toddler's lollipop and he's bound to start bawling, was photographer Jill Greenberg's thinking. So that's just what Greenberg did to illicit [sic] tears from the 27 or so 2- and 3-year-olds featured in her latest exhibition, "End Times," recently at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles. The children's cherubic faces, illuminated against a blue-white studio backdrop, suggest abject betrayal far beyond the loss of a Tootsie Pop; sometimes tears spill onto naked shoulders and bellies.

The work depicts how children would feel if they knew the state of the world they're set to inherit, explained Greenberg, whose own daughter is featured in the show. "Our government is so corrupt, with all the cronyism and corporate lobbyists," she said. "I just feel that our world is being ruined. And the environment — when I was pregnant, I kept thinking that I'd love to have a tuna fish sandwich, but I couldn't because we've ruined our oceans."

Heh. You just can't make this stuff up.

Thanks to Patterico.

Overheard Inside An Israeli Tank:

First Israeli: Are we really God's Chosen People?
Second Israeli:
First Israeli: Well, there was the slavery in Egypt.
First Israeli: And the Captivity in Babylon.
First Israeli: And the Seleucids.
First Israeli: And Vespasian.
First Israeli: And Titus.
First Israeli: And Hadrian and the Diaspora.
First Israeli: And the Inquisition.
First Israeli: And the pogroms.
First Israeli: And the Holocaust.
Second Israeli:
First Israeli: Well, if we're God's Chosen People, what does He do to people He doesn't like?

(Shamelessly imitating Jeff Goldstein.)

Bread Upon The Waters

My grandfather was a highly-decorated hero of the Balkan Wars -- 1912-1914 -- the preliminaries for World War I. He got his fill of conflict and for the rest of his life he was the classic "Quiet Man".

About seventy-five years or so later, a family friend asked me to help him through the bureaucratic maze of an administrative agency. For me, it was a relief from criminal appeals and I was very happy to do him the favor, pro bono. We got what we wanted but I never thought that we would not and it is not something that I ever considered exceptional.

I just learned that the family friend I had helped out had recently passed away, fifteen days short of his 100th birthday. I also found out what a few hours of my time meant to him outside of the administrative ruling.

One time, my grandfather had been dragged into court on a frivolous charge. The only time in his life he was in court whether as a plaintiff, defendant or witness. My client, the family friend, stood by him, advised him, helped him find a lawyer and accompanied him to court as a character witness. The case was dismissed within minutes of being heard by the judge.

I learned today, from one of my client's sons, that my client had connected the two events. That he had related the two stories to his family and how much it had impressed him that the good he had done to my grandfather was reciprocated by the grandson two generations later.

The Book of Job: Redemption For Satan?

In a nutshell. Satan tells God, "Sure Job loves you. You've only been sending him good things". So God, to prove His case, sends Job a bunch of bad things. Job still loves him.

Now God knew how all this would turn out. He is Omniscient. He knows the future to infinity. He knew Job's heart. He knew Job would not turn away from him. It was not a test of Job. So for whom is the lesson? [I should have written "for whom was the lesson? -NK] I can only surmise that it was for Satan. That God sought to teach him and redeem him.

FURTHER THOUGHTS: Dana correctly points out that the story of Job is now a lesson for us. Yet there is something still unsatisfying in either a) Satan being able to tempt God or b) God using Satan as his instrumentality to make a point to humanity. I reject "a" out of hand -- it strikes me as too Zoroastrian. I want to think some more about "b".

Dana comments: "The Book of Job is a dramatic poem; theologians normally consider the tales related in Job to be a fiction with a theological purpose, to address the problem of the suffering of the innocent: that suffering occurs to the just and the blameless as well as the unjust and sinful, and that man is not wise enough to understand God's purpose in allowing such."